Blog Posts by author Gita Kavarana

I was grounded in a village in Alirajpur, Chaktala in Sondwa block, (Jhabua District Madhya Pradesh) due to travel sickness, while my colleague went to see some good work on the wadi concept being undertaken by a local NGO and funded by NABARD. When I woke up around 6 in the evening feeling reasonably normal, I was sitting at the doorway of the house, waiting for the return of others.

Jhabua is home to a unique indigenous poultry breed called the Kadaknath. The tribals value the breed for its cultural as well as its health values and also consider it sacred. The bird is high in iron and amino acids and low in fat. It tolerates extreme heat and cold climatic conditions and requires minimal management inputs. The breed is disease resistant and is valued for the quality and flavour of its black meat. It is also locally known as Kali masi because the bird is black inside –out – skin, feathers, legs, meat, blood, etc.

‘Only minral water availabale (sic)’ -- where in India can you see such a sign? Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi? Or even Bhopal, Indore, Lucknow, Ahmedabad? Sorry, this was in a hotel in Jhabua, the district capital of the tribal district of Jhabua in Madhya Pradesh. I asked the hotel manager, a school drop-out tribal, why he had put up this sign. He said that most of the customers demanded bottled water.

Of the one billion people that defecate in the open in the world, 638 million are found in India alone. In Badasilonia, a Nirmal Gram village, in Jhabua district of Madhya Pradesh, we inspected the toilet of Punna bai. The toilet or “latrine” as it is called, had only the four walls of the outer structure. On the opposite side of the road, we visited the house of the sarpanch. His toilet was completely and properly built and had an additional twin room for bathing. He also had a water storage tank close to the toilet.